BACBI: Anti-Racism, Anti-Semitism, Zionism etc.

The whole campaign of equating opposition to Zionism with anti-Semitism has, in fact, been carefully orchestrated with the help of the Israeli government and the far right in the US. It is easy to explain why.

Today, we hear a lot about White supremacy but very little about Jewish supremacy, as if the former stands for the latter. It is true there are more similarities than differences between Jewish supremacy and White supremacy. Both are based on ethnic/nationalist bias and racism.

The question of the enemy in Palestine as it is emerging in discourse today is getting confusing.
Historically, Palestine was colonized with the help of the British and support of the United States in service of an ideology created by White European Jews who were atheists.

In making an appeal to Jews or anybody, Palestinians must certainly not frame their appeal the way Klug, a consultant to the Palestine Strategy Group and the Israel Strategic Forum, does. Rather, they must frame their appeal on the litmus test of principles of justice, human rights and equality – i.e., principles that the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement embodies.

50 years of occupation have reawakened latent prejudices and old stereotypes not only against Jews, but also against Arabs and Muslims. But many still deny Israel's increasingly oppressive control is a crucial factor.

Last year one of the most important books on Zionism, ever, was published in English by Pluto: What Is Modern Israel? by Yakov Rabkin, a professor of history at the University of Montreal. The central theme of the book is how Zionists have exploited Judaism and western traditions to offer Israel as a liberal democracy when it is actually a nationalist colonialists project hanging on by its paranoid fingernails.

This document, based on an earlier “working definition” abandoned by the now defunct EU monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia (EUMC), broadens the widely understood concept of antisemitism as hostility towards Jews, to include criticism of Israel.

"Rejection of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by the British University and College Union (UCU)" (UCU, May 29, 2017): click here.

Congress re-affirms:UCU's condemnation of all forms of racial or religious hatred or discrimination; UCU's commitment to free speech and academic freedom; the importance of open campus debate on Israel/Palestine. Congress resolves that UCU dissociates itself from the IHRA definition.

Shorn of philosophical and political refinements, anti-Semitism is hostility towards Jews as Jews. Where it manifests itself in discriminatory acts or inflammatory speech it is generally illegal, lying beyond the bounds of freedom of speech and of action. By contrast, criticism (and equally defence) of Israel or of Zionism is not only generally lawful: it is affirmatively protected by law.

“Back in the day,” which in this case was 8 February 2007, the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism adopted a “working definition” of anti-Semitism which included the following point: It is anti-Semitic to “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour)”.

Jonathan OFIR: "Why so many are twisting Ken Livingstone’s words about Hitler and Zionism" (Mondoweiss, April 6, 2017): click here.

Two days ago, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was sentenced to another year of suspension after a hearing by the Labour Party’s national constitutional committee (NCC) concerning his remarks on Hitler’s temporary support for Zionism.

Modern Antisemitism appears in many different forms and is not always easy to unmask. In May 2016 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted by unanimity a legally non-binding working definition of Antisemitism. The European Commission welcomes any useful tool for civil society, law enforcement authorities and education facilities to effectively recognise and fight all forms of Antisemitism.

Joseph LEVINE: "On Questioning the Jewish State" (Free Speech on Israel, March 19, repr. from NYT by permission of the author): click here.

I was raised in a religious Jewish environment, and though we were not strongly Zionist, I always took it to be self-evident that "Israel has a right to exist." Now anyone who has debated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have encountered this phrase often....

You’ve got to envy the Jews, the most privileged minority in the free world. The Arabs in Europe, the Muslims in America, the blacks and Native Americans, the Gypsies, the aborigines, Arab Israelis, and of course, the Palestinians in the territories – all these groups can only dream of enjoying the kind of rights and standing enjoyed by the Jewish minority in the world.

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for freedom, justice and equality of the Palestinian people is an inclusive, nonviolent human rights movement that rejects all forms of racism and racial discrimination.

TIs it possible to be anti-Semitic and pro-Israel at the same time? Your answer depends on how you define the terms. As Toni Morrison wrote, “definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” If you define anti-Semitism solely as criticism of Israel, the answer is dangerously simple.

[The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, Haifa] The research reveals that 60,000 Israeli internet users wrote at least one post containing either racism or hatred towards Arabs and Palestinians 7amleh identified 675,000 racist or provocative posts against Arabs on social networks, which were uploaded at the rate of one post every 46 seconds throughout 2016. The majority of these posts were on Facebook. The number of posts more than doubled in 2016, rising from 280,00 similar posts in 2015 to 675,000 in 2016.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) welcomes the decision of European Commission to include the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, adopted in May 2016, on the Commission's website. The IHRA is particularly glad to see this positive step, which it hopes to be followed by the adoption of the working definition of antisemitism by the EU itself.

All over the world people who challenge Zionism are being accused of antisemitism. You might imagine the one group of dissidents who are safe from this kind of delegitimization is the Israeli Jews—we are not. This cruel irony, when exposed, may actually play a productive role in decoupling antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

On December 14, Tom Suárez spoke at The House of Lords, London, at the invitation of Baroness Jenny Tonge. Drawing from his recently published book "State of Terror", he addressed the centennial of the Balfour Declaration and his views on the way toward ending today’s Israel-Palestine “conflict”.

There is nothing new in what Omri Boehm says. The philosophy professor at the New School in New York articulates a view that many of us on the left have subscribed to for many years. But it is simply astonishing to see it published in the most establishment paper in the country.

When I participated in a debate at the University of Birmingham on Israel and Palestine a few years ago, organisers told us not to use the term ‘apartheid’, for fear of falling foul of a definition of anti-Semitism recently passed on campus – the same definition now given a new lease of life by Theresa May.

You would think that support for Israel is fundamentally at odds with anti-Semitism. If you thought that, however, you would be wrong. The past few days have witnessed a bizarre pile-up of prominent Israel-supporters going out of their way to defend or excuse what seem to be obviously anti-Semitic views voiced by Steve Bannon.

In my last article, I compared the opposition to the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) of two influential Jewish journalists, Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Beinart. I demonstrated that as Zionists they both opposed the BDS movement but with significant differences.

Diaspora Jewish teens' radical dissociation from Israel is not about the settlements or the occupation. They're ashamed to be associated with Zionism.

Ben WHITE: "TMoves to silence critics of Israel have made the debate about Zionism unstoppable" (Middle East Eye, Oct 30, 2016): click here.

By now, it is clear that the UK Labour Party’s so-called “crisis” of anti-Semitism is being used to delegitimise anti-Zionism by groups and individuals who see the two as one and the same thing. It is that conflation I want to address, and specifically, how it is only possible through the dehumanisation and disappearance of the Palestinians.

I dedicate this essay to Hajo Meyer (1924-2014) anti-Zionist, political activist, Auschwitz survivor and hero in the struggle for Palestinian freedom. His words continue to inform me and his actions comfort my sorrow.

Earlier this month, at the 15th annual conference held near Washington DC, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation announced that it was officially changing its name to US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

The Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons, the lower house of the British parliament, has just issued its report, “Anti-Semitism in the UK”, in response to concerns about “an increase in prejudice and violence against Jewish communities”.

The problem with this occupation is not, primarily, the presence of soldiers and military governance (although that in itself is a problem) – the problem is the ideology that informs it. That is – Zionism. This ideology seeks maximum land with minimum Palestinians. The hunger and craving for territory most often gets precedence over humanitarian concern for non-Jews.

Last Saturday I attended a one-day conference on Israeli Settler-colonialism in Palestine organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) in Edinburgh. It was a moving and gripping day. All the speakers at the conference acknowledged, each in his own way, that speaking about settler-colonialism in Palestine-Israel clarifies and simplifies the narrative about what is really going on there.

OK, the title is mostly to get you reading. This article is really about how to read the Chakrabarti Report into antisemitism in the Labour Party (and we will get there shortly). But the title does correspond to a potential issue.

Max BLUMENTHAL: "It Is Important to Have Perspective on Elie Wiesel's Legacy" (Alternet, July 5, 2016): click here.

The news of Elie Wiesel’s death in the early morning of July 2 ushered in veneration and reflections from figures across the political spectrum, from Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu and George W. Bush. The outpouring of high-level praise aimed at consolidating Wiesel as the eternal voice of the Holocaust and the central preceptor of its lessons. Those who criticized his legacy or pointed out his moral contradictions, meanwhile, were ferociously attacked by the forces he helped inspire.

Richard FALK: "The Zionism debate as a shield for Israeli policy" (Middle East Eye, June 5, 2016): click here.

To be clear, it is not Zionism that should be evaluated as racist, but Israel as a state subject to international law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (1966) and the International Convention on the Crime of Apartheid (1973).

Ilan PAPPE: "Now is not the time to surrender to Israel's bullying on 'anti-Semitism'" (Middle East Eye, May 5, 2016): click here.

There comes a time in a movement's struggle when success is both a rewarding moment but also a very dangerous one. The apartheid regime in South Africa pursued its most vicious and lethal policies shortly before the fall of the regime.

Philip WEISS & Adam HOROWITZ: "Saying Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is not anti-Semitic" (Mondoweiss, May 3, 2016): click here.

In practice, the Jewish State in Israel/Palestine has meant an ethnocracy where Jews are given special and exclusive rights over other citizens and non-citizens under the sovereignty of the Israeli government. This is a system that we reject for political, personal and moral reasons that are in no way connected to vilifying or discriminating against Jews, the traditional definition of anti-Semitism.

We are desperately in need of some sanity as the British political and media establishment seek to generate yet another “new anti-semitism” crisis, on this occasion to undermine a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party before the upcoming local elections.

The Israeli government deliberately invokes terrorist attacks, rockets, and scary brown men in headscarfs to stoke the population's fear, but I am scared of the racism Zionists use to justify the occupation. Originally published August 2014.

"If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land. We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin." Menahem Ussishkin, chair of Jewish National Fund, 1930.

Gideon LEVY: "So These Are Israel's New Heroes?"Israel's recent military operations in Palestinian hospitals are a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention, and make you wonder how low the country can sink (Haaretz, Nov 21, 2015).

Noam SHEIZAF: "Jerusalem, in context"(+972, October 19, 2015). "The current events in Jerusalem have a political history and context. Attempts to attribute the violence to some kind of Palestinian pathology while ignoring other factors is a recipe for making things worse."